Just before the death of his parents, author Tom Liotti, legendary lawyer and judge from New York, learned that he was adopted. In his heartfelt autobiography, Liotti shares the amazing story of how this knowledge impacted his life, his work, and his legacy. Liotti traces the lineage of his parents, Louis and Eileen, and then delves into his childhood. From his first days at kindergarten to being a collegiate swimmer and eventually a famous civil rights attorney, Liotti reveals how his parents always offered encouragement and support through every facet of his life, loved him unconditionally, and shaped his passion for social justice. But it was the discovery of his adoption that altered Liotti's world, sending him down an uncharted path. He began searching for his biological parents, desperate to find his roots and know his heritage. No matter his findings, though, Liotti realized how each of us has limitless potential and that love has an infinite capacity to change the world. Gripping, honest, and real, The Secret Adoption brilliantly captures one man's incredible journey into the past and speaks to the resilience of the human spirit.
THE SECRET ADOPTION
By Thomas F. LiottiiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Thomas F. Liotti
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-9556-7Contents
Dedication..............................................................................viiPreface.................................................................................xiAcknowledgments.........................................................................xviiChapter I—Finding a Home..........................................................1Chapter II—Making Of Middle America...............................................17Chapter III—Looking For More......................................................26Chapter IV—The Nuns...............................................................30Chapter V—Hardball And Learning To Steal Home.....................................40Chapter VI—Finding My Niche In Sports.............................................50Chapter VII—First Breakthrough Into The Big Time..................................58Chapter VIII—The Road To Excellence...............................................60Chapter IX—Working Harder Than Anyone To Reach The Goal...........................70Chapter X—Eye On The Olympics.....................................................80Chapter XI—Three And One Half Yards And A Cloud Of Dust...........................92Chapter XII—Goodbye Columbus......................................................108Chapter XIII—Coming Back..........................................................117Chapter XIV—Political Awareness...................................................120Chapter XV—After Sports—Segue To Reality....................................143Chapter XVI—The Tools For Reform..................................................153Chapter XVII—Down But Never Out—Stepping Up.................................192Chapter XVIII—No Office, No Clients, No Money But An Attorney.....................208Chapter XIX—Battling At The Bar...................................................218Chapter XX—To Judge...............................................................228Chapter XXI—The Adoption Secret...................................................240Chapter XXII—The Search...........................................................260Chapter XXIII—Ethnic Pride........................................................263Chapter XXIV—At Least One Sibling.................................................265Chapter XXV—A Lawyer's Work.......................................................267Chapter XXVI—Discoveries..........................................................272Chapter XXVII—Epilogue............................................................276Index...................................................................................363
Chapter One
Finding a Home
In 2002, my dad, Louis Joseph Liotti, was 85 and my mother, Eileen Frances Liotti, was 82. Eight years before that my dad had triple bypass surgery, and one year before that, in 2001, mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. They had lived in the same split-level house in Westbury, Long Island for forty-two years. Mom was having increasing difficulty cleaning it and dad was having a hard time just navigating the stairs.
Dad had been a contract negotiator for Western Electric Company, and prior to that President of the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the Office Workers Local in Manhattan. For twenty years, mom was a keypunch operator for Nassau County and later, a recorder of deeds. In her youth she was a model. They retired together in 1982 and went on one major trip. It was a two week trip to Italy with Perillo Tours. I felt guilty about that because when I went to Italy with my wife in 1983, we stayed at the finest hotels and resorts including Villa d' Este, the former Cardinal's home on Lake Como just outside of Milan. Indeed, I played on the same tennis court used by the Pope just a week before, next to the border of Switzerland. I went to La Scalla to see a German opera and ate Osso Bucco, Caruso's favorite meal, at his favorite restaurant and sat at his table. I saw The Last Supper painting which was being restored, hanging at the back of an old church. No security, just hanging there. I had lunch at the Hotel Cipriani in Venice and we finished our stay at San Pietro in Positano, the world-famous resort built on the side of the Amalfi coast, on which I drove my own car, a Lancha. The beach consisted of a massive piece of rock perhaps one hundred yards long with the upper portion blown out to create a massive granite-looking-type slab of flat rock and the feeling that you are in a cave with the sun shining on you, with the Island of Capri off the coast. It was in San Pietro that I read in the hotel log book: "Living well is the best revenge."
My wife Wendy and I had a small house about a mile west from my parents, also in the Village of Westbury. We have three children and all were living with us at the time. In 2002, our twins, Louis and Carole, were seventeen and Francesca, our youngest daughter, was thirteen.
After some careful planning we agreed with my parents that they would sell their home and use the money from the proceeds of the sale of their home to renovate our home to accommodate their moving in with us. Selling a home that they had lived in for over forty-two years was heartbreaking for them and for me. I had lived in that house with them for sixteen years, not leaving until 1977 when I was thirty and had just gotten married.
My parents married in 1941 and dated for five years before that. My dad went off to war in Europe. He was an infantryman, a corporal in the U.S. Army and participated in the invasion of France. He never talked about his many friends who died during the war, except to say that he made God a promise while he was there. He promised that if his life were spared he would pray everyday. He did say his prayers everyday. He said the rosary at least once a day, he became a daily communicant and an usher in his church, St. Brigid's of Westbury. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Holy Name Society.
I can remember when my dad and I went to see the movie, Saving Private Ryan. At one point in the movie I looked at my father and noticed that he was crying. I told him to "Take it easy, it's okay," but he did not stop for awhile. As people get older they often become more emotional, nostalgic and cry a lot. My father also spoke of having to return home on an emergency leave to tend to my mother who had miscarried. Thereafter this happened a few more times to my mom, at least three times and possibly as much as seven. Years later when I was nine or ten, my father told me about the miscarriages and I cried over the brothers and sisters I would never know.
One can only imagine how devastating this must have been for both my parents in that era. Reproduction was a cultural and religious mandate. When my dad learned of my mother's miscarriage he made special arrangements to return home on military leave. At the time, if a woman could not have a child, her friends, family and neighbors questioned her entire worth or value to society. Feelings of remorse and depression might ensue. I do not know if that ever happened to my mother, she was an optimist by nature. My father was totally supportive of her even when faced with the fact that he might not ever have a child of his own. They never thought of divorce. They believed in their marital vows of "love, honor and obey, in sickness and in health." The obey part was also never an issue. I never saw my father or mother order one another and I can recall no serious arguments between them. They certainly had some financial issues, but their love for each other was an enduring commitment. If you are blessed by being able to love another in your lifetime and, if you have that love returned, then all else is secondary. Next to faith, to love and to be loved is the most compelling life experience. In that respect, they were so lucky.
From the man's standpoint, his virility might be questioned by himself. The loss of self esteem for each could be overpowering, deflating all other emotions. Only the very strong can survive and remain together. Louis and Eileen stayed together until their deaths in 2008. Love overcame all other emotions. They lived up to their marital vows and then some. The natural fears of not having a place in history or a legacy, were annihilated by their faith and love.
After the war my parents moved to a one room apartment in Brooklyn on Martense Street. I was born on May 29, 1947. My dad went to work for AT&T and my mom stayed at home. My dad became involved in the union movement during its bare knuckle days. He became friendly with Alex Rose of the Ladies' Garment Workers Union and United States Senator Robert Wagner, Sr. after successfully negotiating contracts for his fellow employees, he went to work for Western Electric Company as a contract negotiator predominantly with the Department of Defense. He had top security clearance.
During and following the war my mother, of Scotch-Irish decent, became a model. She did that until my parents moved to a Levitt home in 1951, settling into a home in the Salisbury section of Westbury. They bought the home for $7,999.00 on the G.I. Bill, which provided for low interest mortgages. It had four rooms, no basement, an unfinished attic and a carport. It was a wood frame house, no bricks, with radiant floor heating. A main selling point was that each home came with a television. (black and white, of course). That cost an extra one hundred dollars. Milton Berle, I Love Lucy, Ozzie & Harriet and Abbott and Costello were some of the early television shows available, together with Amos and Andy as well as reruns of Laurel & Hardy. The Million Dollar movie on Channel 9 also made its debut. We watched them like a religious rite together with Channel 11, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Yankees and on occasion, the New York Giants (if Willie Mays was playing centerfield, we might catch a glimpse of one of his spectacular catches). I can still hear the announcer, Mel Allen's voice. It was mainstream America, the suburbs, a new term that became a part of our national lexicon.
Much of Long Island, or at least the central part of it, had been potato fields which, developer Bill Levitt purchased just after the war in the late 1940's. Nassau is one of sixty two counties in New York State. The name has a German derivation. It is the first County east of Queens County and the City of New York. It is a mere sixteen miles long and the same distance wide. After the war and for the rest of the twentieth century it was predominantly Republican with a population of nearly one and one-half million at the century's end. Fifty years after his acquisition, Levitt died a broken and poor man, but back then his vision brought people from the City to affordable housing on Long Island. Instead of a one room apartment, my parents now had a home, an investment. Of course the returning G.I.'s were not sure if these homes would hold up against hurricanes and the like, but they have. They are still there, built up and out, many now resembling small mansions still on plots of about sixty by one hundred feet.
While millions were moving out of the City, Robert Moses, the master planner, was complimenting Levitt's ideas with those of his own. He had already developed Jones Beach with appurtenant access roads. Many of his tunnels and bridges were also completed by then. The middle class joined the super wealthy who had already built their massive estates on the Gold Coast, the north shore of Long Island. Northern State Parkway became a main access road for trips to and from Long Island. The Long Island Expressway (L.I.E.) also known as "the largest parking lot in the world," came into existence in the early 1950's.
Life was good. Many of the ex-G.I.'s secured jobs in Long Island's defense industry including Grumman Corporation, Sperry, and others. Still others kept their jobs in the City and commuted on the Long Island Railroad each day. My dad had a gray Plymouth which he would drive to the Westbury railroad station, take the train to Jamaica and then to Penn Station at 34th Street and Seventh Avenue. From there he would take the subway downtown. He did that everyday, five days a week until he retired, more than thirty years later. Occasionally when the train fare became too expensive, he would drive to Queens and take a subway from there. The whole train trip would take one and a half hours each way. The trains were dangerous and overcrowded, running on diesel fuel and billowing huge clouds of smoke into the air. Even then, the pollution seemed unfathomable to me.
For the white G.I.'s, a Levitt home was a good bet. We had no Hispanics or Asians or African Americans in the neighborhood. By the century's end the demographics showed twenty eight percent to be Italian American; nineteen percent Irish Catholic; eleven percent Jewish and nine percent African American and other minority groups. The Hispanic population grew but much of it was still undocumented. Levitt built schools, miniature shopping malls which usually consisted of a grocery store, a five and dime with a luncheonette and a hardware store. He also built outdoor swimming pools, schools and baseball fields.
My father got to work almost immediately. He turned our carport into a garage using a broken hand saw, used lumber and a borrowed hammer. He did the same thing in the backyard when he put up a fence, mixing and pouring his own cement for the posts. He laid a brick patio and built a porch over it. He never had any engineering, architectural, or carpentry training.
The backyard soon became a home for our first pet, a boxer puppy we named Duke. He was the first of many boxers which we owned and later showed in local dog shows around New York, not including Westminster. Duke was friendly and loving toward me. We would play in the backyard. He would run at me and knock me down. Then he would bite the cuffs of my pants and drag me around the backyard. I loved it. We were pals and I would fall asleep in front of the television with my head on Duke's back or with him at the foot of my bed. He was a very strong animal, living for thirteen years, a long time for a boxer at that time. Using the times seven formulae for determining the duration of a dog's life, that was ninety-one years. Duke was fairly docile unless he thought that you were going to harm me or my mother. My father used to play a game with him where he would raise his hand pretending to strike me. Duke would come over and bite down on his forearm. Not hard, but just enough to stop my father by his grip.
The mailman and milkman also had their problems with Duke. Boxers have very strong hind legs and jump straight up nine or ten feet. The mail would be pushed through the mail slot and it was always a race to get there before Duke, lest your mail would be eaten or shredded by him. Duke went through thirteen windows in his pursuit of mailmen. He never caught one or hurt one. He almost bled to death once on cut glass and we finally had to reconstruct the windows in front of the house so he could not run through them. Like the entire community, Duke was spirited. None of our neighbors had dogs and Duke became the unofficial mascot for this rugged community.
In 1952, I attended kindergarten at the Bowling Green Public School, which catered to children in the kindergarten through fifth grades. Not much was memorable except a block fight and my first kiss by Beverly Lamont, a beautiful blond with whom I have been infatuated and in love ever since. Many years later I tried to reconnect with my long lost love. She had moved to California. I wrote to her. She wrote back, stating that she had never been the same since the death of her son. I did not write back. I hope that she is okay and that she has had a good life. Beautiful people should have beautiful lives.
First, Second, and Third grades are a blur. The old class photos show neatly dressed boys and girls. Some of us wore ties and jackets. There was pride in how children were sent dressed to school. By then I became interested in sports. My dad provided a guiding hand. At first I was not very good at anything, but I liked sports and played everything all the time. We also used to play a game called "Get Your Guns." It was just a pretend game where we would get air rifles which did not fire anything, they just made a loud pop. I had toy guns everywhere and we would run around the neighborhood pretending to shoot each other, hiding behind bushes and trees. We pretended to be cowboys and gunslingers like Jesse James and Billy the Kid. It was so much fun. But it also cured me of having any interest in guns. I got all of that out of my system when I was a little kid. We played make believe games. Today even toy guns are unpopular. Students referring to guns of any type today are suspended from school. School officials appear to think that they can prevent reenactment of the Columbine High School shooting spree by banning all references to guns.
First, I played for the Levittown Red Devils transition football team. I was eight. Today they are a legend. I did not really take to football. Someone gave me the nickname "swivel hips," but I was not very good at it. In a picture of me in a team photo I look like a long, lost, sad sack. I did not really understand the game and disliked the hitting.
My dad next gave me a basketball and that was one of my games. Today I am six three and a quarter so I would not have been tall enough but I could play, at least for a white kid at the time. My dad touted Bob Cousy, the short star of the Boston Celtics. When my dad played basketball, it was with two handed set shots, something that was outmoded by the time I took up the game.
I took that ball up to the asphalt, outdoor steel rim basketball courts at Bowling Green. I would stay there for hours, outdoors, all during the winter and summer, nothing bothered me. Sometimes I would go up there and a lot of the older boys were there. We would do a "shoot around" or foul shots and I would always get picked even though I was the youngest at the time. I would drive past all those guys. I did not care—big or small, I went through them. I practiced a lot. I would stay on the court for hours and just kept shooting, often by myself, in the winter, until my hands were nearly frost bitten and cracked from the cold.
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Excerpted from THE SECRET ADOPTIONby Thomas F. Liotti Copyright © 2011 by Thomas F. Liotti. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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